IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joecin/v20y2022i1d10.1007_s10888-022-09535-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Stock Market and the Evolution of Top Wealth Shares in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Edward N. Wolff

    (New York University)

Abstract

The mean wealth of the top wealth percentile surged more than two-and-a-half fold in real terms from 1983 to 2019. Changes in wealth over time can be decomposed into capital gains and savings. Capital gains in turn depend on asset price movements and portfolio composition. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, the paper provides a decomposition of the change in the mean wealth and wealth share of the top percentile into a capital gains and savings effect. It then analyzes how much stock price movements and movements in other asset prices individually affect changes in the wealth of the top percentile. It finds that the rise in the stock market accounted for about a third of the advance in the wealth holdings of the super-rich, while increased business values explained about a quarter and gains in non-home real estate about a sixth.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward N. Wolff, 2022. "The Stock Market and the Evolution of Top Wealth Shares in the United States," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(1), pages 53-66, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecin:v:20:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s10888-022-09535-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10888-022-09535-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10888-022-09535-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10888-022-09535-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andreas Fagereng & Luigi Guiso & Davide Malacrino & Luigi Pistaferri, 2016. "Heterogeneity in Returns to Wealth and the Measurement of Wealth Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 651-655, May.
    2. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2016. "Editor's Choice Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 519-578.
    3. Bricker, Jesse & Hansen, Peter & Volz, Alice Henriques, 2019. "Wealth concentration in the U.S. after augmenting the upper tail of the survey of consumer finances," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    4. Jesse Bricker & Alice Henriques & Jacob Krimmel & John Sabelhaus, 2016. "Measuring Income and Wealth at the Top Using Administrative and Survey Data," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 261-331.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthew Smith & Owen Zidar & Eric Zwick, 2020. "Top Wealth in America: New Estimates and Implications for Taxing the Rich," Working Papers 264, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    2. Wojciech Kopczuk & Eric Zwick, 2020. "Business Incomes at the Top," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 27-51, Fall.
    3. Andreas Fagereng & Luigi Guiso & Davide Malacrino & Luigi Pistaferri, 2020. "Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(1), pages 115-170, January.
    4. Edward N. Wolff, 2021. "The declining wealth of the middle class, 1983–2016," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 461-478, July.
    5. Jacob Lundberg & Daniel Waldenström, 2018. "Wealth Inequality in Sweden: What can we Learn from Capitalized Income Tax Data?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(3), pages 517-541, September.
    6. Bertrand Garbinti & Jonathan Goupille-Lebret & Thomas Piketty, 2021. "Accounting for Wealth-Inequality Dynamics: Methods, Estimates, and Simulations for France," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 620-663.
    7. Benjamin Ching & Tayla Forward & Oscar Parkyn, 2023. "Estimating the Distribution of Wealth in New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 23/01, New Zealand Treasury.
    8. Edward N. Wolff, 2020. "Taxes and the Revaluation of Household Wealth," NBER Working Papers 27328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Jonathan D. Fisher & David S. Johnson & Timothy M. Smeeding & Jeffrey P. Thompson, 2022. "Inequality in 3‐D: Income, Consumption, and Wealth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 16-42, March.
    10. Mauricio De Rosa, 2022. "Accumulation, inheritance and wealth distribution: first estimates of the untold half," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 22-07, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    11. Jesse Bricker & Sarena Goodman & Alice Henriques Volz & Kevin B. Moore, 2021. "A Wealth of Information: Augmenting the Survey of Consumer Finances to Characterize the Full U.S. Wealth Distribution," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-053, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Gabriel Zucman, 2019. "Global Wealth Inequality," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 109-138, August.
    13. David Gallusser & Matthias Krapf, 2019. "Joint Income-Wealth Inequality: An Application Using Administrative Tax Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 7876, CESifo.
    14. Daniel Waldenström, 2021. "Wealth and History: An Update," CESifo Working Paper Series 9366, CESifo.
    15. Waldenström, Daniel, 2021. "Wealth and History: An Update," Working Paper Series 1411, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    16. Mauricio De Rosa, 2018. "Wealth distribution in Uruguay: capitalizing incomes in the dark," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 18-07, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    17. Schularick, Moritz & Albers, Thilo & Bartels, Charlotte, 2022. "Wealth and its Distribution in Germany, 1895-2018," CEPR Discussion Papers 17269, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Per Krusell & Anthony Smith & Joachim Hubmer, 2015. "The historical evolution of the wealth distribution: A quantitative-theoretic investigation," 2015 Meeting Papers 1406, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike I. Steins, 2020. "Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949–2016," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3469-3519.
    20. Jesse Bricker & Alice Henriques Volz & Kevin B. Moore, 2017. "Updates to the Sampling of Wealthy Families in the Survey of Consumer Finances," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-114, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:joecin:v:20:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s10888-022-09535-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.